Wearable computing has become a prevalent step forward in the progress of technology. Consumers are searching for greater and greater opportunities to integrate technology with everyday wearable items such as glasses, necklaces, and bracelets. Many products on the market today connect to a user's mobile device and allow for the pushing of notifications, answering emails and text messages, as well as the basic functions of keeping time and screening calls.
An additional trend being seen is the rise of digital fitness trackers. Fitness tracking devices are commonly worn around the wrist, neck, or on the ear, and combine specialized sensors to detect motion, steps taken, and heart rate. More advanced models can combine sensors with computing algorithms to provide a user with respiration rates, calories burned, sleep cycle analyses, and general metabolic information. Many of the fitness trackers currently on the market allow for a user to upload and share fitness data to a computer or a social network, allowing for the tracking of a user's fitness data over time.
In spite of the rising popularity of both wearable computers and fitness trackers, the wristwatch still remains a popular fashion accessory. Wristwatches can be a triumph of mechanical design, having hundreds, even thousands, of moving parts. Many luxury watches have the mechanical ability to display far more than the hours and the minutes; extra features, such as tracking eclipses or planetary motions, are termed “complications” in horology, the study of watches and clocks. Timepieces convey status and wealth, fashion and taste, and a sense of punctuality. And while many of the above mentioned wearable computers or fitness trackers seek to emulate clocks or watches on their central displays, none can replicate the mechanical intricacy or aesthetic elegance of a luxury timepiece. What is needed is a watchband with integrated electronics that can provide the same functionality of a wearable computer or fitness tracker, but able to be attached to a user's desired mechanical or digital timepiece such that the timepiece's aesthetics and functionality are not impaired.